Fastener stack

ABSTRACT

A plurality of juxtaposed fasteners, such as seals for joining overlapping portions of a strapping ligature, are retained in a semi-rigid stack by at least one continuous, flexible, plastic filament that is press fit in aligned notches in the legs of the fasteners.

United States Patent 1 Meier et al.

[ FASTENER STACK [75] Inventors: William A. Meier, Hoffman Estates; Edward P. Wojcik, Niles, both of Ill.

[73] Assignee: Signode Corporation [22] Filed: Mar. 19, 1971 [21] Appl. No.: 125,999

[52] US. Cl. ..206/56 K, 206/65 K [51] Int. Cl ..B65d 71/00, B65d 83/00 [58] Field oiSearch ..24/23 W', 85/17; 211/59;

214/105; 206/56 DF, 56 K, 65 B, 65 K, 65 R; 220/97 B, 97 C; 53/26 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,381,811 Saltz ..206/56 DF [111' 3,722,669 [451 Mar.27, 1973 3,225,917 12/1965 Couch ..206/56 DF 3,180,489 4/1965 McGinn ..'...206/65 K 3,275,134 9/1966 Bixler ..220/97 B X 1,683,542 9/1928 Greenwood... ....206/65 K UX 3,100,142 8/1963 English et al. ..214/10.5 R X 3,528,466 9/1970 Tracy ..206/56 DF X Primary ExaminerJoseph R. Leclair Assistant ExaminerSteven E. Lipman Attorney-Dressler, Goldsmith, Clement &- Gordon [57] ABSTRACT A plurality of juxtaposed fasteners, such as seals for joining overlapping portions of a strapping ligature,

are retained in a semi-rigid stack by at least one continuous, flexible, plastic filament that is press fit in aligned notches in the legs of the fasteners.

5 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures PATENTEUMAR271975 Jn/eniony:

, FASTENER STACK BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION It is well known in the art to releasably couple a plurality of fasteners into a stack for loading as a unit into a dispensing mechanism of a fastening tool, or the like. Typical prior art arrangements are illustrated, for example, in Crosby US. Pat. No. 2,344,804, Childress U.S. Pat. No. 2,871,536, Kuster US. Pat. No. 3,032,184 and Kuster US. Pat. No. 3,083,845. The arrang'ement illustrated in the aforementioned Crosby patent has the disadvantage of relying upon a separate member, a metal wire, to initially couple the fasteners together. The wire provides an added expense, and it has proven to be somewhat troublesome to initially thread through the fasteners and remove when the stack is loaded into the magazine of a fastening tool. The arrangements illustrated in the Childress and Kuster patents mentioned above represent an improvement over the Crosby structure, since they eliminate the need of an extraneous retaining member. However, the Childress and Kuster patents illustrate mechanically interlocked fasteners, and while such structures BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention obviates the problems noted above by providing a unique semi-rigid stack of fasteners in which the individual fasteners are positively temporarily associated with one another, and wherein the individual fasteners can be readily separated from the remaining fasteners in the stack. In a preferred arrangement, wherein the fasteners are seals that are utilized to join overlapping portions of a strapping ligature, with the seals including a flat back or central portion and outwardly flaring legs or flanges, the seals are internested relative to one another, and continuous flexible plastic filaments extend lengthwise of the stack through aligned notches in the legs of the seals. The filaments are preferably formed of an inexpensive plastic material, such as polyethylene, and the filament may be of uniform-cross section, such as circu- BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is an enlarged plan view of a blank of a fastener formed in accordance with the teachings of the present invention;

DETAILED DESCRIPTION While this invention is susceptible of embodiment in many different forms, there is shown in the drawing and will herein be described in detail preferred embodiments of the invention, with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not in-' tended to limit the invention to the embodiments illustrated. The scope of the invention will be pointed out in the appended claims.

The seals or fasteners of the embodiment of FIGS. 1-3 are formed from a rectangular sheet metal blank 10 (FIG. 1) that includes openings in the form of slots or notches 12 in opposite sides thereof. A further slot or notch 14 is provided in one end of the blank 10, and is disposed at right angles with respect to notches 12. The blank 10 is bent along parallel fold lines 16 to provide a generally flat central portion 18 and downwardly extending, outwardly flared leg portionsor flanges 20. A plurality of the thus formed seals are arranged in juxtaposed relationship into an internested stack, with the legs on one seal embracing the legs on an adjacent seal to position the central portions 18 of the sealsin parallelism with one another.

The slots. 12 and 14 are preferably formed by a punching operation, with the slots 14 cooperating with a guide member (not shown) at a stack forming station to position the seals so that the notches 12 are aligned with one another. Continuous filaments 22 are then inserted in the aligned notches l2, and illustratively the filaments 22 are circular in cross section and have a diameter that is slightly greater than the width of slots 12. Filament forms other than circular such as square, rectangular, triangular and irregular can be utilized for orientation purposes, if desired. Also, it is notnecessary that the filament have a uniform cross section, and the filament may be configured (as by the provision of depressions or projections) to cooperate with appropriately shaped openings in the fasteners to retain the stack of fasteners in assembled relationship.

The aligned slots 12 effectively define keyways at opposite sides of the seal stack, and the filaments 22 function as keys which may be pressed into the keyways by rollers or the like to provide an interference fit between the filaments 22 and the seal notches 12. While notches 12 have been illustrated as the filament retaining means, it should be understood that the invention is not limited thereto, and other forms of retaining means, such as recesses stamped or formed into opposite sides of the fastener blank, could be utilized.

. Filaments 22 are preferably formed of an inexpensive plastic material, such as a polyethylene, and the filaments 22 are sufficiently limber to allow the individual seals in the stack to flex relative to one another. Illustratively, slots 12 may be 0.062 inches wide, with filaments 22 being 0.067 inches in diameter.

It has been found that a seal stack formed as described above is a semi-rigid, shock resistant unit. The filaments 22 absorb impactto the stack, and prevent the seals from separating from the stack and scattering even when the stack is severely jarred, as by dropping. Furthermore, the exposed filament areas between adjacent seals operate as hinges, giving the stack a great deal of flexibility. The flexibility of the resulting stack enables the stack to be inserted into a curved chute. Spacing between seals can be increased whichwould allow coilingthe stack to provide an extremely compact seal or fastener dispensing method. In

use, the individual seals can be readily separated from one another, since by moving one seal transversely relative to the stack with even a relatively small force will cause shearing of the filaments 22.

Referring now to FIGS. 4 and S, a corrugated fastener is illustrated therein which can be utilized, for example, to hold two or more pieces of wood together. The nail is formed from a generally rectangular sheet metal blank having a pair of aligned notches 32. Nail 30 includes a plurality of elongate ribs or corrugations 34, as is well understood. As canbe seen in FIG. 5, a

I plurality of the nails are positioned in juxtaposed relationship with respect to one another, with the ribs 34 on adjacent clips being nested together. Blanks 30 preferably include a notch 36 at the end remote from the point of the nail, and a guiding member (not shown) may engage within notch 36 during formation of the stack. The slots 32 in'the nails are positioned in alignment with one another, and filaments 42 having a diameter slightly larger than the width of the slots are pressed into the slots to releasably couple the nails to one another. As with the previously described fastener, the filaments 42 may be formed of a flexible plastic material, such as a low-density polyethylene. The inlow-density heads 52 and pointed shanks 54. As can be best seen in FIG. 7, heads 52 include slots 56 and 58 at opposite sides thereof; and when a plurality of nails 50 are arranged into a stack, the slots 58 receive the shank 54 of an adjacent nail to enable the nails to be nested together with the undersurface of' the head portion of one nail being positioned in face abutting engagement with the upper surface of the head portion of an adjacent nail. As with the previous embodiments, the nails 50are retained together in the stack by a filament 60 that extends at an angle relative to the nail shanks 54, and which is press fit into the aligned notches 56. In order to make the orientation of the nails 50 more secure, filament 60 may be scjuare or rectan ular.

Other fasteners intended o be operate upon by a tool to secure several members to each other may also be joined in a stack in accordance with this invention, such as, for example, generally U-shaped clips of the character illustrated in Blumensaadt US. Pat. No,

What is claimed is:

1. A fastener stack comprising: a plurality of generally identically shaped juxtaposed fasteners, each fastener including a generally flat central portion having downwardly extending outwardly flared flanges at opposite sides thereof, adjacent fasteners being nested together with the flanges of one fastener being positioned over the flanges of an adjacent fastener, a shallow notch in one flange of each fastener aligned with the notches in the flanges of the other fasteners of the stack, the sections of said fastener flanges on opposite sides of each notch being fixed and unyielding, each of said notches having an open end at one side of the fastener flange so that the notches collectively define a laterally open keyway extending longitudinally of said stack; and a flexible filamentlike key extending through said keyway in friction tight engagement therein, said filament-like key being located in closely spaced relationship with respect to the open ends of said notches,

the portions of said key extending througheach notch having a dimension larger than the notch to releasably couple said fasteners into a semi-rigid generally selfsupporting-stack.

2. A fastener stack as set forth in claim I wherein said filament-like key is of uniform cross-section throughout its length.

'3. A fastener stack as set forth in claim 2 wherein said filament-like key is circular in cross-section.

4. A fastener stack as set forth in claim'l wherein said filament-like key is formed of a plastic material.

5. A fastener stack as set forth in claim 4 wherein said plastic material is polyethylene.-

* l I! i 

1. A fastener stack comprising: a plurality of generally identically shaped juxtaposed fasteners, each fastener including a generally flat central portion having downwardly extending outwardly flared flanges at opposite sides thereof, adjacent fasteners being nested together with the flanges of one fastener being positioned over the flanges of an adjacent fastener, a shallow notch in one flange of each fastener aligned with the notches in the flanges of the other fasteners of the stack, the sections of said fastener flanges on opposite sides of each notch being fixed and unyielding, each of said notches having an open end at one side of the fastener flange so that the notches collectively define a laterally open keyway extending longitudinally of said stack; and a flexible filamentlike key extending through said keyway in friction tight engagement therein, said filament-like key being located in closely spaced relationship with resPect to the open ends of said notches, the portions of said key extending through each notch having a dimension larger than the notch to releasably couple said fasteners into a semi-rigid generally self-supporting stack.
 2. A fastener stack as set forth in claim 1 wherein said filament-like key is of uniform cross-section throughout its length.
 3. A fastener stack as set forth in claim 2 wherein said filament-like key is circular in cross-section.
 4. A fastener stack as set forth in claim 1 wherein said filament-like key is formed of a plastic material.
 5. A fastener stack as set forth in claim 4 wherein said plastic material is polyethylene. 